33 Years Later, Rajasthan High Court Sentences Husband To Life Imprisonment For Wife's Murder; Sets Aside Acquittal Order

While overturning a decision acquitting a man accused of murdering his first wife, the Rajasthan High Court observed that the trial court in its 1992 order had ignored the testimonies of the eyewitnesses due to minor contradictions as well as corroborative evidence, which was a patent error in law. 

The division bench of Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Munnuri Laxman in its order said, "This Court also observes that the learned Trial Court while passing the impugned judgment of acquittal had clearly ignored the testimonies of the three eyewitnesses, merely on count of some minor contradictions therein, and also ignored the other corroborative evidence produced on record by the prosecution, which is nothing but a patent error of law in the impugned judgment of acquittal. This Court further observes that on the basis of evidence and material available on record, there could have been no other view in the present case, other than the one of convicting the accused-respondent under Section 302 IPC".

The court further said that the scope of interference in the trial court's order is well laid down in law including in Section 386 CrPC, and when this is applied to the present case it reveals that the trial court had "omitted/misread" the material evidence on record, including testimonies of three eyewitnesses of the incident in question, recovery of Kassi (weapon of crime in question), injuries caused to the deceased, medical report, which were sufficient to convict and sentence the husband.

"Thus, the impugned judgment of acquittal passed by the learned Trial Court suffers from illegality, perversity and errors of law and facts," the bench said. 

Background

The deceased wife and the accused husband were living separately due to uncordial relations and the accused was living with his second wife the deceased's residence. The deceased's father, along with another individual had come to amicably settle the dispute, however, when they were away, the accused used a kassi to give severe blows and strikes on deceased's head and neck that resulted in her death. The trial court had gone on to acquit the accused, against which the state moved the high court in appeal. 

The appellant State there were three eye-witnesses of the incident, the deceased' father, his companion and the deceased's daughter, who had given clear testimonies to the effect of accused's offence. Further, the weapon along with blood-stained clothes of the victim were also recovered by the police from the residence of the accused based on the information given by the accused. Furthermore, the investigation officer as well as the doctor who conducted the postmortem also supported the prosecution's story. In light of all this evidence, the State argued that acquittal of the accused was not sustainable in the eyes of law.

On the contrary, it was the case of the counsel for the accused that there were major contradictions in the testimonies of the eye-witnesses including the fact of the time when the police arrived at the place of the incident. Further, despite the place of incident having complete neighbourhood, no independent witness was produced by the prosecution during the trial.

After hearing all the arguments and perusing all the material placed on record, the High Court rejected the arguments by the counsel for the accused and observed that except for the fact about the time of arrival of the police at the place of incident, the testimonies of the eye-witnesses presented no major contradictions who had clearly deposed that the accused caused several injuries to the deceased and that they clearly saw the incident.

Allowing the State's appeal the high court set aside the trial court's order, convicted the accused and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Since the accused was on bail, the high court cancelled his bail bonds, and ordered that he be taken back into custody and sent to jail to serve the sentence. 

Title: State of Rajasthan v Angrey Singh

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 274

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